Hazard

by Crimson Redstreak

Essentially this is just SA3. A Sonic the hedgehog tied in with a series of Crossovers I've been doing for years. This one involves Shadow and a mysterious lizard girl claiming to be another of Gerald's secret projects.

10. The downward slope to The End

Disclaimer: You know the routine. What's mine is mine. What's their's is their's. So now, you STILL can't sue me!

Chapter 14

"It is unlikely that I would be able to finish this experiment. But if you are watching this recording, it can only mean that everything has gone according to plan. Maria, I have given you a second chance at life. The life I couldn't give you when I was alive myself. Able to live on your own without drugs or anything else. Typical that after all of these years, we hadn't found a cure for your disease. That you and thousands of other children couldn't survive in any normal environment without harsh antibiotics and such. When I saw your cold, dead corpse on that table, with that bullet wound right where your heart used to be, it tore me apart. I then created something I can never atone for. But if this message still exists then I already have. If only I could see you now. Half mobian and breathing again... If you are there too Shadow, I'm very proud of what you've become and whatever you'll continue to do. Goodbye my loved ones that I'll never live to see. Goodbye Shadow. Goodbye Maria. Goodbye Julian. And most of all...Goodbye Varunamon. I'll never forget you all."

The audio message was less that two minutes long. But it told of a story that was a lot longer. Even the heartless Eggrobo felt a for a nanosecond very sorrowful.

"This is impossible," Shadow said. "Its blasphemous science thought up by a madman." He eyed the creature who held Maria's eyes and thoughts warily. "Its just not right. I should have refused this from the beginning. I should have cast you out into space the second you suggested it." "But Shadow-"Hazard/Maria said.

"Don't. Speak. To. Me." The hedgehog said icily. "You're nothing but an illusion. A poor excuse for a clone of the person I used to know! How could I have not seen it? The Chaos Emeralds and the Supers as the base, then the Power Stone from Carnival Island, the Power Rings we used from around the ARK to make the Chaos Ring, the Master Emerald shard to halt the growth and transformation effect of the Stone and the Ring, the Precious Stone to enhance your ability to access the Chaos dimension and the Time Stone... You used the Time Stone to pluck Maria's consciousness away just as soon as she died."

He looked pained, unable to express his anger and rage. He almost wished that he hadn't fixed the Cannon to fuse and never fire again. The Super Emerald could have powered it twice over for a firestorm of blasts so that he could lay waste to Mobius. Why not just crash the hulking Colony into the damn planet now? Tear a sore in the Earth as big as the one on his psyche that had been reopened.

"Get out of here..." Shadow said in a low monotone voice.

Hazard and the others looked on, rushing to walk out as the hedgehog gripped his Emerald and looked upon the room. A gleam of madness was in his eyes as he absorbed the energy in the air, the electricity in the wires and cables, the heat, and finally his own emotions. He was the nucleus now of a large popping molecule of electricity that jumped and crackled along his frame. The Light Speed attack smashed all around the lab, laying waste to all. Everything was destroyed in under an hour, from the computer equipment all the way down to the pipes that pumped in suspension fluid. Shadow kicked and thrashed and spin dashed the whole laboratory, trying to sate the fury in his soul. But before the demon in his mind tired, his body gave way. His reveling was cut short when he finally twisted the steel framework of the chaos siphon in upon itself. He was spent, not totally physically, for he could go without sleep for a month if need be. His mind had run out of gas. No feasible physical reaction could ever let Shadow make the nightmare end.

"It's always you," the black hedgehog said as he turned to look over his shoulder. "I couldn't sleep without thinking of you. I couldn't look at an Emerald without remembering why I'd been exposed to them in the first place: you. And now that you've come back...I don't even know what to do."

Hazard blinked away the tears from the corners of her eyes, her sight blurred slightly. "Do what you feel, Shadow. Kill me. Curse me. Kiss me. Say something. Just don't shut down on me. I may have a different body but it's still me in here. Shadow, we've always been best friends. From the second we met when you bumped into me on the observation deck looking down on Mobuis, we've always been close. And now that I've been given another chance you don't want anything to do with me?" The hedgehog was still silent. "Dammit, say something! Call me 'Hazard' if you want to. Do whatever you want to, just say something!

Shadow turned around and strolled over right in front of the halfling that until an hour ago had been Hazard. He looked her in the eyes and sighed slightly, preparing to do what he felt. "It's the most wrong thing in the world that's ever occurred. It's shocking and unprecedented, but... you do know that I'll have to adjust to being taller than you?" He took the girl's hand. "Of course, we are going to have to find you something better to wear. Black just doesn't suit you."

"Suits me just fine," Maria whispered to nobody as they exited the room. "By the way, Shadow, thanks for keeping your promise..."

45 minutes later...

"Oookkaayyy..." Maria said as Shadow finished his tale. "I don't believe that Grandpa could be capable of something like that. But then again."

"Almost destroyed all of Mobius because of his and my own lust for revenge," Shadow said.

They had found what little clothing that Maria had in her closet before the accident that day. She donned a simple little blue sun dress that she swore she was too little to wear about a day ago when she was human.(In her mind it had been a day) She still kept the Scorchers and the arm/knee pads on, even though they weren't needed.

"Well that shouldn't be a problem anymore, right? Now that I'm back I guess you don't really have any reason to want any kind of revenge or anything like that. But what happens now?"

"We could go back down to Mobius later on," the hedgehog suggested. "You always told me you wanted to go. See the world in all it's glory."

Maria looked a bit apprehensive at first and then looked out of the reinforced window towards the planet. Three raking claw marks still seemingly scarring the world. She felt around the rough troughs and looked at her hands, now claws instead of regular human digits. Wondering what kind of creature she had become. Sure she was part human, but also something else. What would anyone she met back on Mobius think about her if they saw the freak she had become?

'Shadow would never say anything,' she thought. 'He's my friend. But what if there are side effects? What if I end up becoming like whatever did these?'

"So what do you say?"

Maria took one last fleeting look at her reflection in the glass and smiled. "Alright. Let's do it."

Sonic panted heavily, leaning against the side of the Cyclone for support. In the middle of his stunt to outrun the electricity in the core, the whole generator system shut down. His plan was to run into the bowl with his power ring and try and create a circuit by absorbing the power through the negatively charged ring. The natural energy boost would have allowed him to propel himself to the other side of the maw where his friends were waiting. Problem: In the middle of absorbing the energy boost, Sonic was cut off and had to run along the circumference of the bowl to avoid sliding down the sleek walls of the bowl into the abyss.

It took him a while to build up the momentum needed to run up on the rim and grind his way off. A particularly tiring affair to say the least.

"Uh, Sonic," Tails asked, leaning over the side of his craft. "Are you gonna be alright?"

Sonic took a very deep breath, shuddered, and hit the floor. "Does it 'pant' look 'huff' like I'll be 'koff' okay, 'wheeze' Tails?"

"Can you move right now, Sugah-hog," Bunnie asked sheepishly. "No."

"Then I guess you won't be able to do anything when I tell you that we could have saved you all that trouble," Tails exclaimed.

Sonic, very weakly, pulled his head up off the ground. "W-what?"

"We kinda could have knocked out the faulty generator making those lightning bolts..."

Eye twitching. "What?"

"And we kinda could have taken a second right in the Lost Colony and went straight to the living areas."

Nerves popping. "What!?"

"And we kinda could have gotten to Aunt Sally first if we took that way too. I 'heh, heh' kinda found a layout on the main computer. I think we can just get a floating platform to take us there too. Isn't that funny...heh, heh, heh...oh crud."

"TAILS!!!"

Above them in the infamous ARK weapons lab something heinous was going on. In the whole process of Hazard's 'accident', nobody had really given a thought to what had happened to the two mechanized members of the team. After the two organisms had walked off, Whelpmon felt a sudden jolt to the back of his skull and then he was here. That's when all the pain started. Behind a console with dimmed glass and legions of machines spinning around him, Eggrobo sat typing away. With each stab of the Enter key, the little digimon felt another jolt of pain shoot through his body. With each passing second he was being dissected further. Somehow taken apart right down the very kernel of his being.

What the hell was that strange tug on the back of his mind though? It was sifting through all of the bits and pieces of his memory... That's it! Memory! The robot had somehow found a way to hack his data! And if he could be hacked, that meant his systems were repaired. But without the digivice he'd had, it was impossible to bring everything together and evolve again.

"Evolve? Query: Explain term: evolve?"

What?

"Searching... Memory kernel +70A3R: Digivolution. Clarify."

No! Not that!

"Comply or this unit will scramble the data until I have a viable answer. Answer Unit's Query."

If I tell you - - you'll...

"Comply!"

I won't!

"Then face termination, stubborn unit."

Sonic hated this part of the adventure. Yes he knew it would happen. It was inevitable. Every time he paid a visit to somewhere in space everything would lag for a while. He knew that whenever he thought it was over, something new would happen and it would escalate to nearly global proportions. It never failed. The Death Egg, the Egg Carrier, Chaos, his last visit to the ARK. He knew that if Hazard had Shadow on her side then it would be that much harder.

"Why does this always happen to me," he said to nobody. "Why couldn't I have gone with the whole damsel in distress kick like the others? Why me?"

"Do you think we'll really need this much stuff," Maria asked. "It's not like we eat a lot."

"It's called being prepared." Shadow hefted the thirty pound duffel onto his back. "I'm going to check on Whelpmon before we leave. Find out if he's coming with us."

"Go ahead, I need some time to figure this out a second," the halfling muttered, trying to tune herself to the bizarre green device she'd been carrying for some reason. As soon as the black hedgehog left the room, she was fully absorbed in the screen, toying with the options.

For some reason, the human in Hazard's body had been unaware of anything she'd done before the treatment. So there was no way for her to know how to hone her senses and smell the person stalking up behind her. Almost no way for her to hear them breathing. And almost no way to get away from what would become a watershed in her new life.

Before anything could even be said, Sonic quickly snatched up the halfling's right hand and twisted it around her back. He clasped his hand down over her mouth to keep her from screaming. Forcing her to relinquish the device she stole from him weeks ago he wrenched her arm almost to the breaking point. Sal's martial arts tutoring seemed to be good for something finally. Sonic shoved her up against the observation window headfirst and got ready to beat a hasty retreat. "That was a bit too easy," Sonic said glumly to himself, hoping against what he knew was probably gonna happen.

Hazard shakily stood up again. One hand on the wall, the other on her head. Steam trailed from her nostrils and her eyes glowed dangerously. Sonic had seen this before when Dulcy had lost her temper once. The signs of when you know a dragon is mad...real mad.

"Too easy," the girl yelled. Waves of heat seemed to radiate off of her body where skin was showing. "Too easy, you annoying rodent?!"

"I couldn't find Whelpmon for some reason and the robot is missing as well," Shadow said upon strolling back in. "Something strange is going on around here–You!!!" The accusation echoed out and Sonic took off running with his prize in hand. "What the hell is 'he' doing here?"

Across the room the halfling screamed at the top of her lungs, banging on the side of her head. "Forget the damn rodent, Shadow," she yelled. "Help me! Make it stop!"

Shadow eyed his friend warily. "Make what stop, Maria?" The girl turned her dead serious gaze on the black hedgehog and snarled. "The simpering voice in my head you idiot! It keeps calling out!! Screaming at me!! At you!" She suddenly closed her eyes and started wringing her hands. "And for God's sake, could you stop mixing me up with that dead bitch already!"

And with that statement, it hit him. With that last little treatment and everything that had gone on afterward, he had forgotten about one person. The one person who had gotten him into all of this in the first place. The one person he had forsaken. It was her fighting with Maria in that body. It was Hazard.

Before he could find a way to calm her down alarms began sounding all over the colony. A deafening amount of noise kicked up from all sides as Eggrobo clunked in with less mechanical movement than Shadow had seen him ever manage.

"Something has happened," the robot said in a calm voice just above the din of the alarms.

'Well that's obvious,' Shadow thought. "Well?"

"As per your instructions, I have made a formal report on the power failure during Hazard's last treatment." The automaton took no notice of the raving orange heap writhing in a corner nearby as he continued. As if it were to be expected. "Tampering in the electrical systems by intruders on the colony resulted in a power spike that overloaded and deactivated power in the lab. The accident had a fractal effect on Hazard's psyche. Instead of a smooth integration into her mind, a merge of ideas and memories to make another personality. Hazard is now dealing more with an overwrite. Her other personality is fighting with the new one for dominance."

Shadow vaguely remembered how his own personality was overwritten to make way for the subroutine of a soldier. An unstoppable weapon of mass destruction instead of a true person. He had a sense of what was happening. "What if neither side can win," he asked.

"Then the mind will recede. Both personalities will cease to exist if neither one can find a route to victory. The only true death for organisms like yourselves is that of the mind."

On that note Maria, who was in charge of the body for that brief moment of clarity ran off into the hallway. To disappear somewhere in the colony. Shadow did not choose to go after her and console her as he would have if not for one factor. One vital factor that hadn't resolved the last time this happened.

"All of the doors and chambers of the colony are wide open, correct," the black hedgehog asked.

"Everything that is not essential, yes," the badnik said.

"Good..."

In the center of the colony, around the living areas one of the doors gave way. Something quickly slid past the open chamber and into the cracks of the wall and ceiling. The creature gave a bellowing sound that was like that of a raging river heard from a cave and was gone. Around the corner, Princess Sally Acorn shivered in fear.

Chapter 15

Sonic was elated, he had gotten his device back and caused a good amount of chaos in the process. At the moment he was jogging at a sedate thirty MPH on his way to the rendezvous point that Tails, Bunnie, and he had agreed on not long before. Everything was going according to plan. Right up until the doors around him began to shut. Strange, Tails' program was made so that the doors on the whole station would have been open for at least an hour. The hedgehog increased his speed and dodged through the closing doorways.

The hallways were soon becoming narrower and narrower and then leading upwards. Away from his destination. The blue hero had the sneaking suspicion that he was being herded. He went with the flow and followed the passages with his guard fully up. Soon enough he had come to a large solid looking door made of steel with the Project: Shadow warning symbol on it. The thick door behind him closed and Sonic was trapped in a five by five space between the doors.

'Not this again,' Sonic thought as he had a flashback of Eggman's Sky Fortress deathtrap.

A small panel on the wall opened up to reveal a screen with an ID panel and a video screen. The screen suddenly flickered to life and Sonic saw the back of a spiny red and black spackled head looking out onto what looked like the opposite end of the door. His arms were folded behind his back. The black hedgehog also had a screen beside him with Sonic on it.

"You are quite the reckless one blue hedgehog," Shadow said. There was something different, or rather familiar about his voice. It was that same hollow tone he used to speak in before the accident months prior. "You came here with a simple plan and executed it without thought to the consequences. You pathetic little tool." Shadow shook his head slowly and sighed. "How did it feel, Sonic?"

The confused blue hedgehog raised his eyebrow. "How did what feel, man?"

Shadow chuckled grimly and then exploded in a fountain or mirth that didn't reassure Sonic that he was in any sort of good mood. "Why being a monster of course."

"Say what!"

Shadow made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob. "You didn't exactly talk to the person whose head you slammed into a wall a few moments ago did you, Sonic? You didn't give them half a chance...you just attacked. An action worthy of...well, me."

Sonic looked angrily at Shadow's back through the screen and yelled," She stole my Chaos digivice from me and kidnaped one of my friends. So excuse me if I didn't want someone as dangerous as that to 'hit me back'. Besides, your girl Hazard is the monster, going to other people's homes and attacking them for their property."

"Indeed. But the person you attacked back there wasn't just Hazard, Sonic. It was Maria. I could sit here giving you the third degree for hurting her like that. For causing the power outage which effects are killing her. To explain how this is possible. But I won't, no." The black hedgehog looked back at the camera and smiled evilly.

KRA-DOOM!!

Shadow's arms tore through the half foot thick alloy and grasped onto Sonic's shoulders. With more strength than Sonic thought he possessed in his lean body, Shadow ripped him through the tear and tossed him across the room that he'd been sent to death from by Eggman so long ago. He hit the wall with a shuddering thud and fell to the floor below.

"I'm going to do what I should have done long ago," Shadow said. "What I was designed to do. I'm going to kill you and everyone and everything you love. I'm going to kill and kill just like Hazard wanted and I'll finally 'make everyone happy' like Maria said, especially myself. I'll make them happy by spreading a cloud of bloodshed across the Earth and give them peace in the arms of death. And then only I shall be left standing tall. Only I. Shadow...the Ultimate Life-form."

Sonic listened to the violent sermon preached by the sadistic killer he had beaten before and shuddered. 'This is not cool.'

Every hall in the now dim space colony looked the same. There was no distinguishing the plain human designed pathways from the next one. Every survival trick one learned for natural environs like deserts and pitch black forests did nothing for one here. No way to make a land mark, no way to find north or south.

'I mind as well admit it,' she thought. 'I'm lost.'

Sally sat down leaning back against a wall to take a breather. The thing that confronted her when the lights went off was like something out of a child's nightmare. A huge long creature with glittering green eyes and chitinous armor. For a girl who had dealt with monsters on a daily basis for some odd years, the princess couldn't remember any of Robotnik's badniks being that menacing. The mad doctor always kept small or functional with absolutely no imagination. He could never have built something like that, but if this wasn't one of his bases then where was she? The last thing she remembered before waking up in that bizarre robot's lab was running from the monster that had taken down Tails and Bunnie.

Besides, the creature that had been hunting her for a while now was somewhat familiar to her. Almost as if she knew what it wanted. The look in the monster's eyes before it first attacked was sorrowful, but then somehow turned to anger. A bad feeling settled down in Sally's insides as she remembered the outrageous stories that Sonic had told her about over the years. The one in particular she had taken part in. Their first visit to Station Square. A life altering experience to say the least.

A sound interrupted her thoughts, from close by. Down the corridor to the right where she had come from...the creature.

Sally stood up and edged her way down the hall. If she could get a glimpse of what it was, maybe she could find a way to communicate with it. Or better yet, kill it. The shuffling sound came closer and closer with each passing second. Just as she was rounding the corner, heart hammering in her chest, Sally jumped out to face her pursuer.

"AAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!"

THUD!

"Oops," Sal said timidly. "Sorry. Are you, uh, okay Bunnie?"

The frightened cyborg had damn near fainted and was flat on her back trying not to have a heart attack. "Ah will be when I find mahself some dry britches," she joked. "Ah see ya'll healthy enough to scare the bejeezus outta people. I've been looking all over this dang space colony for you, gal."

Sally blanched, her eyes going wide as saucers. "Space colony," she said in a trembling voice.

"Ya'll didn't know?"

"They kept me under for the better part of the past week for some reason. That robot wanted something from me..."

Bunnie grabbed her friend's arm and started pulling her in the direction she came from. "Well, it's nice to see that bein' kidnaped didn't stunt your natural curiosity, Sal-gal. But right now we gotta meet back with Sonic and Tails before Sonic's dark twin and his girlfriend decide they want to get rid of all their problems at once."

As they started down the hall at a sedate pace, Sally looked over at Bunnie and asked," How did you manage to find me in here? I must have ran for at least a mile before I decided to take a rest."

"Why were you running?"

GGGGGGGRRRRRRRRUUUUULLLLLL!!!!

Sally looked back and then started running again with her friend in tow. "That's why! Run for it!"

His footfalls were soundless, like a ghost's. His eyes were clear yet held an air of age and experience. The dark brown fur almost blended in with the dark part of the colony that broken only by the dozens of multicolored beads he wore on his head. The creature walked unnoticed up to the sufferer who was the product of an anomaly he scarcely comprehended. He felt the pain and anguish enveloping the soul like a steadily shrinking bubble. Soon enough that bubble would crush the person inside, sending them beyond all help. He had work to do before that happened.

He put a hand on their shoulder and began to speak in a language not heard on Mobius for centuries. Only the agents of the three know how to speak it. Giving them partial command over reality itself, the language allowed them to open the doors to other times, places, and then push through. Yet the language was about only one thing and this agent always knew that: probability. If it can be done with the slightest odds of occurrence no matter how little, it could be done now in his presence.

Only once before had he chosen to use this ability given to him so long ago. To save his own great grandson from complete destruction, indeed so he could go on to save them all later that day. And now came time for him to save another, only this time not from an overly powerful titan of centuries past, but from an enemy each of us has and faces on a daily basis. For this young woman had to find a way to face herself.

"Incredible..."

He sat floating over a ravaged field of soldiers and vehicles. Never had he seen a mind so divided as to resort to all out mental war. Tanks of Overlander design let loose with explosive volleys of shells on massive Behemoth dragons who shook off the damage and went on to deliver flying balls of napalm. Wyvern soldiers and human infantry fought on the ground as winged serpents did airborne duel with hover pods. Nothing grand scale as in the battles of the Great War, but violent enough.

And on each side of the expanse sat two individuals who would re-spawn more creatures and soldiers as old ones were murdered. At this rate the fighting would go on indefinitely. Good thing he had been sent now. The old one raised his right arm and the world stopped and slowly faded away. At the flick of his left wrist the two figures on either side of the horizon began to move together. When there was less than two yards between them, he dropped down between them at ground level. As he had done before as leader of his people, he began to mediate between the two individual personalities.

One side was represented by a human girl. A young teenager in a blue jump suit with blond hair. She seemed innocent enough, but had the same weight of sadness on her soul as the other one. This weight was as heavy on him as he looked on her, making his dreads weigh more than they truly did. The other side of the soul seemed to be an orange dragon who seemed to be just about the same age as the other. Horns crowned the head and swept back two feet like long thick spears. Her widespread wings had an eerie gold glow to them. This one held an air of barely contained menace, like a sensitive bomb. The slightest provocation could set it off and possibly start another war. This one wasn't as depressed or down as the other one was, but her anger hindered her almost beyond reason. Every action she seemed to take only filled her with more malice toward a single group that he too had some issues with: humans. This issue had to be resolved if this person's other side was human.

He finally allowed the two minds to touch tentatively again. Just enough so they could talk, but not all out fight. The dragon spoke first.

"Whore!"

"Worm!"

"Bitch!"

"Killer!"

The old one put a hand to his forehead. "Children..." he sighed.

"Ape!

"Idiot!"

"SILENCE," he screamed. The both of them looked at each other and then at him. "That's better."

"Who the hell are you," the dragon said forcefully. "And what the hell are you doing, breaking us up like that? I was winning!"

The human snorted. "Excuse my darker half, she's under the delusion she can actually take something that doesn't belong to her when she knows I'll win in the end." She looked at the creature between them up and down. "However, I do share her curiosity."

The echidna mystic smiled slyly. "I am known as Athair. And I am here to help."

"Then you can start by helping me," the dragon said. "By killing her."

"Or maybe you can kill us both," the girl said.

"You see!" The dragon bristled up, looking as if she were ready to attack. "That's why I want her gone! She wants to kill us both! She was gonna send a deactivation order through my life support matrix. I knew I should have gotten rid of it before the treatment. With that done the machine would have killed me. Killed us!"

Athair looked at the human with one eyebrow raised. "Why do you want to die all of the sudden? From my understanding you were just reborn."

"It's her..." the human hissed. "Her memories. Her thoughts. She isn't like me, in any way."

"That's the best thing about me. I–" "You're a cold blooded killer. You murder without remorse. Without feeling. With my hands."

"Oh...that. Well, they were the ones who attacked first."

"That doesn't give you the right to kill them!"

"Well then what should I have done?"

"You–We're supposed to be a higher life-form. You could have found a way to get over that insipid one sided hatred of yours."

"Humans killed my creator! That's all they're good for!"

"Humans killed my grandfather! Humans killed me... and I don't hate them for it."

Athair laughed in spite of the moment. "I don't even know why I'm here."

Both looked at him quizzically. "Wha?"

"You two seem to be made for each other. You," he said pointing at the dragon," need her guidance. You've never been given the basics of what is morally right and wrong. You only know what feels right and what feels wrong. And you need her as well."

The human pointed at herself. "Who me?"

"Yes. After seeing most of your life from behind a glass wall, I suppose that now the challenges that await could use bravery that one like yourself rarely has without help. You are confident on your own, but I suppose that she could give you that extra courage and recklessness when needed. If you're interested."

Both hastily, but also a bit mistrustful of the other decided to shake hands.(or claws or whatever) The human sweatdropped and looked over at her 'darker' half. "Do you think this could really work," she asked.

The dragon stared at Athair a bit and then to her lighter side. "Well...if it doesn't I know who we could blame," she said.

Both looked mischievously at the echidna and smiled. At that moment, it was hard for Athair to distinguish which one was the darker half.

With that he pulled out of Hazard's mind and began the long walk home from his last job with the Walkers. Indeed, he could pass on knowing he had given guidance to one who was even more hard headed than Knuckles. And Hazard could later be called crazy for even suggesting she even saw the mysterious presence known by Tails and many others as Athair.

Of course, before the healing can begin, there's always a few things left undone. A few strings someone didn't pluck and plans left unfinished. And Hazard set up a lot of strings before her epiphany came into play.

"Oh my Lord," she said, breathlessly. "What the hell was wrong with me? I– Shadow... oh, no! Shadow.-"

"Oh man!!! Shadow, stop!!!" Sonic dodged left and right as far as he could trying to avoid Shadow's savage attacks.

The two of them had been speeding all over the colony. Dashing from one place to another. Just when Sonic would think he could actually disable his opponent, Shadow would attack even more viciously. Pressing on with more fury and power than Sonic had ever thought he could let loose with. That was before he began using his Chaos Control.

His attacks obliterated entire sections of the ARK in one massive blast. Almost all of the Final Chase Zone was ripped apart, floating in space as a massive debris field waiting to fall into the Meteor Herd Zone. The world often became a blur as Sonic was caught up in his teleportations and they would find themselves fighting over a massive pit of molten lead or in a dim small lab space where a wrestling match would ensue. Indeed, he had taken Chaos Control and made it more than a phrase and used it to his advantage; never letting Sonic get the upper hand by mastering his environment for even a moment.

As they now fought on the top of a very long ramp that led straight down, Sonic wondered just how long it would be before it ended. They must have ran for miles around the colony last time they dueled like this. How much more energy did Shadow have left, how much longer could he go? Sonic knew from experience that the more ring energy he collected from the Zones, the longer he could fight. But how much longer would that go on before Shadow ended it and stripped him of that advantage as well. He had to think. He had to figure out a way to deal with this...he had to run.

Sonic backflipped away from one of Shadow's flaming roundhouse kicks and dashed down the ramp at top speed.

'Let's see ya deal with this,' Sonic revved up past Mach 2 as his feet became a figure eight blur. He had used this technique many times before, but never like this. Never on an incline this steep. He drifted down close to the ground as low as possible and flared his nostrils to breathe easier. 'I'm losing energy fast here, I have to find a way to deal with that faker. He's warped out of his gourd. He's flipped. There's no way I can reason with him. And as much as I hate to admit it, he's a better fighter than me with that extra Chaos Control.' The hedgehog sensed a disturbance in the trail behind him and cleared the end of the ramp to start running upside down at the same speed on an opposite platform. 'I can feel him gaining on me fast. Must be using a light speed dash.'

Shadow, surrounded by an intense aura of light and flame closed in on his opponent and slid in under him. With one quick movement he jumped up, planting his foot in the back of Sonic's head and grabbing his right ankle at the same time. Sonic's momentum propelled them forward with his face skidding along the ground as Shadow used him for a brake.

"Well, Sonic," Shadow began," I think I'm bored with this now. Yes. Let's go somewhere and finish this."

The world blurred away yet again to be replaced by a demolished room with different stones and objects Sonic had seen for years throughout his travels. Shadow tossed him across the room to land face down in front of him. He looked down on Sonic gleefully and smiled widely.

"This was truly cool, Sonic. But I'm afraid we've got to say goodbye. But before that I guess I'll get rid of any measure of resistance first. Chaos Cancel!"

Shadow waved his hand over the room and all color was inverted for a moment in Sonic's perceptions. The blue hedgehog felt as if every part of his body was being drained of blood and then filled with lead. The only part of him that seemed light enough to move was his left arm, the arm that was still clutching his Chaos digivice. It seemed as if all of the ring energy he had absorbed was gone and replaced with all of his delayed fatigue. Sonic had often gone Zone trolling for days on missions without a wink of sleep and come back to retreat into his hut for a week at a time. Everyone knew that his recklessness led to consequences like this, but in the name of the mission that the hero believed in so much that he would put his life and long term health on the line, nobody would question him but Sally.

"Now that you're weakened and helpless..." Shadow began gathering energy for a final chaos spear to tear Sonic apart with. He loaded level after level of energy he gathered from Sonic's body into his palm ready to launch. When he could hold no more, more than 276 rings, he attacked. The spikes of rapid electricity shot forward at blinding speed like living things focused on their blue target. When Sonic just about felt the static hum of the enhanced spears he snatched up the closest stone he could find and rolled himself to block the attack with it in his hand.

Neither of them really knew at that moment about the device, or about Sonic's reflex to absorb Chaos energy after his Billionth ring, or maybe the fact that the stone in his hand wasn't one of the seven Chaos. The attack struck the gem and a beeping sound was heard. Sonic felt a flood of memory go rushing through his mind from places he never knew and people he didn't really know. He saw lines flowing from the gems on the floor, from him, from Shadow, and even the air. The world was alive for a few seconds...before the pressure kicked in.

Sonic floated into the air and screamed in pain as his body was wrenched back almost double. He twisted and shook his head in all directions as if having a seizure. Shadow stepped back and looked on, hoping that this was just an extra long and dramatic death. Sonic finally curled up into a ball and embraced the power...again.

With a flash of light he was back. Sonic floated above the floor in all his radiant glory and yet it wasn't Sonic. This Sonic's quills were flared out wide behind him and flowed upward away from his body. This Sonic's fur was a radiant white with a gold hue. Motes of multicolored light shot out from his form like embers abandoning a flame. Shadow was amazed that Sonic could even achieve a form that felt this powerful. He felt confident he could take on Super Sonic, but this... This must have been God Sonic, by the way he overwhelmed the senses with his raw power.

No, Shad. The name's Hyper Sonic. Yes, I can read thoughts. No I don't care if I killed your little friend Hazard now. And yes, I believe in payback. The holy looking hedgehog looked at the gem in his hand before chuckling a bit and absorbing it. A Time Stone. How classic. It must have warped me to a form I had that could disregard that killing blow you tried to hit me with. Let me try to repay the favor.

The world shifted and changed. Shadow was suddenly on a wide platform looking at Sonic and Tails run in the opposite direction.

"What?"

DOOM!

The black hedgehog turned around and came face to face with the third edition Eggs-o-Skeleton. The mech's Master Emerald beam was fully charged and Robotnik pulled the switch. A ridiculous beam of energy erupted from the lens and engulfed him in a blinding hot light. The world flashed again and the char broiled hedgehog landed on his face into a ring.

Shadow barely got a look at his surroundings before the ground began to quake and steam started bursting out of the rocks walls beside him. Sonic instantly appeared beside him as if nothing were wrong, eating a chili dog he had materialized for himself.

"W-what was-"

That? Sonic answered. My past... or one of my pasts anyway. I just wanted you to see what I could do with the power of seven Super Emeralds. I could literally send you to Hell, Shad. But I'm gonna be nice. We're gonna play a game. If you can beat me in a race to the end of the Lava Reef Zone I'll let you go. When(as opposed to if) I win, we play the Bonus Round. You don't wanna play the Bonus Round, trust me. 'As if I have a reason to,' Shadow thought, getting into position.

Ye of little faith, faker. Sonic got down into a crouch. Up... Over... GONE!!!

One second the radiant being was there, the next he was gone. Leaving behind a vacuum trail that dragged Shadow for a few yards and deposited him in a bed of sharp quartz crystal.

Get the lead out, faker, Hyper Sonic taunted in his opponent's head. My game, my rules!!!

"Why is revenge always so hard for me," the black hedgehog said to the ceiling as he righted himself and tried to do something he never hoped he would have to with Sonic the hedgehog: Catch up.

Chapter 16

It came barreling through the halls at top speed with two figures scurrying ahead. The front of the tapered head was coming closer and closer every moment. It growled and roared each time they ducked another of it's wild swings. The wiry liquid tentacles shot through the main body and out into the chest to grasp at it's prey. By all rights and accounts they should have been dead long ago, but for some reason it wasn't happening.

The red haired one looked back at the very familiar monster who was chasing her and the cyborg. It was reminiscent of Chaos, the water monster from Station Square, but with a seemingly roboticized brain. It's spinal column and truly organic parts were made more like one of Robotnik's machines than of the legendary monster that had taken so many lives years past. Another of the military's sick experiments sent to ARK for storage.

Apparently since all of the doors were opened, this advanced version of the station's drones broke out and started looking for targets. Since catching sight of the Mobian long ago, the hunt had been on.

The monster suddenly jumped back and drifted away into the darkness. The squirrel ahead barely noticed the creature's absence before she and her companion came to a dead end. It was either go back or forward, into the air lock.

A gurgling sound was heard and the drone's liquid body reformed. The robotic head drifted in ominously and settled into place where the cranium should have been. The eyes began to glow green with red dots scanning across them. When they finally settled on the reflections of both mobians, it squatted down low and held it's gangly arms wide. The cyborg raised her robotic appendage and waited for the creature to make a move. The tense situation wasn't helped by the jolts and rumbling heard around the colony every now and then.

Of course nobody noticed the strange outline shoot down the hallway and slam the machine in the back of it's head. It sailed over the two mobians' heads and clattered against the air lock door. Both stared at the orange tinted halfling as she materialized and strolled past them.

"Well what are you waiting for," she said to them. "Run! Get off this level! Now!"

Confused as they were, both didn't hesitate to follow the order and promptly rushed off to the nearest stairwell.

Sally looked over at a sheet-white Bunnie and asked," Was that Hazard?"

"Ah don't know Sal-gal," Bunnie panted. "She looked different, more like an Overlandah' or somethin'. What ah do know is that she's gettin' ready to do something drastic."

At that moment however, the person in question was leaning against the wall with a certain mechanical monster's head beneath her foot. "You're pretty sad for another GUN creation, pal," Hazard yawned. "But I'm gonna give you to the count of five to get your nasty little self away from me. One..."

Watery body running down off the walls.

"Two..."

Coalescing into another body mass.

"Three..."

Growling again as it tests out it's movement without a head.

"Four, don't say I didn't warn you..."

Hazard kicks the head into to body, splattering it again somewhat.

"'Yawn' Five." KRESH!!!

With that, her hand slams through the near invisible safety glass over the airlock controls. A swishing sound is heard as the door at the end of the hallway groans. The drone looks back in fright and reassembles itself faster. It looks back to Hazard and sees nothing but motes of light drifting in the air. The door crumples inward and is sucked out into the inky blackness of space. As the entire level depressurizes a vacuum is created. The monster screeches at it's body instantly freezes and it's head is sucked out into space. It can only look on helplessly since it is too weak to levitate back towards the colony.

"Now take a left here– no Tails, my left."

"I'm trying," the pilot said. "But these directions you're giving me don't make any sense. We should be getting off the ARK, Sonic, not going further into it."

For the last fifteen minutes, the young fox had been in radio contact with his friend and trying his best to get to his location. However there was something strange going on. Why would Sonic have contacted him like this if he already knew the rendevous point? Well he would found out soon enough, his signal was getting stronger. So the signal's source had to be nearby.

"Just a little closer Tails," Sonic urged. "Just down this hall. Now make a right turn. I'll see you when you get here."

Tails looked back and forth while his machine stomped heavily towards the room at the end of the hall. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing up and his swishing twin appendages swivelled, a sure sign that he was nervous. Something about this just didn't seem right.

When he arrived in the usual lab chamber with a view of Mobius hanging in the field of stars, Tails immediately knew that stuff had hit the fan. Because when the twin doors behind him shut with a pressurized hiss, there wasn't any other way out. The fox scanned the door way and prepared to make himself an exit. "Relax, Tails," said Sonic from over the radio in a reassuring voice. But it was also coming from right behind him.

When he turned the walker's port around, Tails didn't even think before locking onto the heat signature standing there. Blazes of neon light and bullets sprayed through the air. The young fox locked on and pulled the trigger until he'd depleted a fourth of his ammo. When the chafe settled, a bored looking Hazard moved her hand away from her mouth and cleared her throat. Tails noticed that her voice lightened from Sonic's tone to her own while she did so.

"Are you done," she asked. "Because you'll tickle me to death with weapons like that."

Tails locked onto her again with another volley of missiles, ready to fire instantly. "What do you want from me?"

"To be safe. Your other two friends are somewhere safe as well. Do what you like, but I can't let you leave the ARK yet. Not until I'm down here."

This confused Tails even more. He was about to ask another question when she vanished in a flash of light. He saw that the room was nearly bare except for an antiquated looking computer set up nearby on of the consoles on the far wall.

'When in Rome,' he thought. He hopped out of the machine and began working. His first job: find out everything he could about Hazard.

The path was littered with debris again. Apparently the meteor herding robots hadn't gotten to this part of the ARK yet. There were chunks of floating stone unaffected by the AG field all around the colony, but these were different seeing as each one had a strange trail of rings and greenish fluid following behind them. Hazard already knew that the green crap floating and oozing around most of the platforms was acid. That it was her that released the chemicals stored in tanks for the colony's labs. And that less than half an hour from now the Meteor Herd would deactivate it's artificial gravity and robots and all of the stone and ore there would plunge into Mobius' atmosphere.

Most of the chunks would burn up, but unfortunately the chemicals would bond with the largest chunks and make them heat resistant to a degree. Their surfaces would burn, but they would fall to the planet's surface and cause considerable damage to the area in which they had landed. And the worst part of it all was that she and Whelpmon had rigged the back up AG generator to push the fragments into a trajectory that would make them land on the most populated human cities and settlements on Mobius. It was six in the morning and when the storm of flaming meteorites hit, no one would be prepared. Thousands would lose their lives. And it would be on her head.

'I guess I'm wasting time think about it. Let's go!'

And the halfling shot off down her platform and began bounding from one drifting chunk of ore to the next. It was tough going, trying not to incinerate herself in the floating pools of acid as well as dodging huge pieces of stone that collided with the paths that actually were online and keeping their position. This entire place was actually beginning to float into position, toward the point in space near the planet where it would begin to drop into the atmosphere. At least that was what would happen if Whelpmon's calculations were correct.

Hazard thought about that for a second and pushed on even faster than before. Even for a digitized amnesiac, she had to give it to Whelpmon. His math was never off.

Shadow heaved again and pulled himself up onto the broad stone platform. The world was covered in clouds and mists. Everything held a golden glow from the brilliant sunshine around him. It would have been beautiful... if it weren't for the other gold hued thing standing in front of him playing a Gameboy.

Five minutes, Sonic said nonchalantly. Took me three to get this far. You're slippin' faker.

They were in Sky Sanctuary, a pivotal place in the Aurora religion observed by the echidna race. A place that resided on Angel Island that could actually float on it's own. The sacred place is often visited by spiritual leaders, adventurers, and a hero or two. Today was no exception. Shadow had lost his initial race with Sonic and spent his time climbing more than a hundred stories of ramps and passing through teleporters on his way up. During his aforementioned five minutes, he'd never stopped once since Hyper Sonic told him he only had ten minutes to get there. It was either that or lose and play another Bonus Stage.

The hedgehog had forgotten his plans for revenge when he'd been consumed in a massive sea of magma back in the Lava Reef Zone. Now he was more interested in trying to survive. Sonic had proven his mastery over the intense power within him when he cut off Shadow's ability to use the Chaos Control. He'd kept him from teleporting and advancing his speed, making his chaos emerald a useless chunk of green rock.

Indeed, Sonic's newfound power allowed him to do a whole lot. In the past, collecting rings within a Zone let him become stronger and faster. But they also gave another ability that often left cryptic knowledge in his mind after calling for it. It led Knuckles to the King's sword. And it often kept him from being lost whenever he was somewhere he'd never been before. This same ability was intensified a thousand fold. All he had to do was think of an event or a person and he got a vision or an entire string of information.

Let's see, he thought. What's going on with Sally and the gang?

Princess - Friend - Love? - Cool - ARK - Safe - running- looking– for a way home. Both Bunnie and Sally were both wandering around the living areas of the ARK. Sonic pushed closer to their presence and peeked in on their thoughts. Sally was still being the ever curious one, trying to figure out who the orange person was who'd just saved them. Bunnie was trying her best not to think about the same issue, wondering how they would find a way to get home.

He backed away knowing that they were both alright and closed in on Tails. Instead of having to look, Tails' spirit was lit up like a beacon. It must have had something to do with his destiny later in life. They always said he was supposed to be a hero greater than him and Knux. Maybe this was a sign? Oh well. Theorize later when everyone was home. He looked okay at the moment, hacking his way through the ARK's computer files.

Sonic broke off that thread and tried to figure out what would make Shadow go ballistic like that. The little contest of his had made the black hedgehog burn off his feelings trying to Zone hop behind him, thankfully. But Sonic was still curious as to what actually started it.

Shadow - Fake - Enemy - Friend? - Reason - revenge- was looping– He was lost again. For a while there Shadow was lost, wallowing in his own anger and depression again. It wasn't gone. It was just buried thanks to something or someone who'd pushed it away... Damn, that Hazard chick was really Maria? Small world. Hmm, if she's still alive now (which Sonic instantly knew she was) there must be a way to save her. Shadow said she was dying before their little spat.

Oh well, I'll just have to save her, he thought. Not that she deserves it. But I guess if Shadow really cares that much about her, she can't be all bad. Alright. Let's find Hazard.

Hazard - Maria - Cold - Thief - Hope - Plan -trying- fixing things– The little maniac was trying to fix things. She and that weird digimon thing that shot them down had planned something. A meteor strike on a bunch of human cities? How predictable. Sonic thought of a few different ways to aid in derailing the reformed thief's plan but couldn't think of any that fit him.

He could obliterate the entire field of rocks and metal. Or he could pull Little Planet in the way of the barrage. He could turn it to gold and put it all near Knothole. Even better, he could aim them toward Eggman's installations. The sky was the limit... wait. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Anything that he knew of was the limit. There would be consequences if he did something very detrimental.

But what could he do with all that rock? Hey...

Hazard hauled herself up the last rail that led to the AG field generator. She was about to shut it down when she smelled something in the air. The halfling looked up, knowing that the moment of no return was coming. And there it was. A greenish yellow cloud that blotted out the light that reflected off the planet. Being cautious about her approach, Hazard lifted off the platform with her Scorchers and flew up towards the closest meteor. She grasped the hand sized chunk and sniffed it.

With a shrug of her shoulders, she reared back and took a bite out of it.

What the heck is this all about, she thought. Is this...cheese? Is this all no more than two hundred tons of CHEESE?! How the heck did that happen?

Hyper Sonic doubled over in a fit of laughter. Shadow simply looked at him as if he were insane.

"Are we done here yet," Shadow asked, utterly disgusted with the whole experience.

The shimmering being stopped his chuckling long enough to audibly answer," Yeah, yeah."

It was sand... he could feel sand. A completely strange and gritty... sensation. The air was dry. The temperature was scorching. The sun almost burned, it beamed down so hotly. It was wonderful. But this was only the beginning. Phase One in a four phase plan. The sand was shifting again, but he heard no wind. There was a sound like thunder and the hum of power, but there was no light outside but that of the sun. He was here. Excellent. The perfect guinea pig.

Hyper Sonic and Shadow appeared from a flashing ring that hovered in the air and then vanished. Shadow had never liked Robotnik's tomb base. It always smelled of oil from his countless machines and it reeked of age. Being figuratively as old as he was, he hated the smell of something rotting with a coating of dust. He'd ambled through the base in his spare time and hated the thought of the voices in the hallways that had no badniks to watch them. His eyes drifted back and forth through the ruins, scanning for the bulbous form of the ghosts that wandered the place. Even in the day.

Sonic sat there wondering what had happened to him to make him so skittish about them. He'd dealt with ghosts in the past and none of them were even aggressive. They just tried their best to scared the living tar out of him.

"I don't think they'll try anything while I'm standing here," Sonic boasted, holding up a glowing hand. "So you can quit your worrying."

WAP!

The gold hedgehog's head snapped to the side in surprise and very slight pain. Shadow had given him a vicious right hook that hadn't even been seen. His expression was still plain, bellying his feeling of intense embarrassment. Sonic looked at him and considered hitting him back, but left it at that. The message was already gotten: Don't go poking around my thoughts. That, and "Don't ever say that I'm scared."

"How long is it until your friends and Hazard get here," Shadow asked.

Sonic rubbed his jaw. "A good half hour or so," he muttered. "It won't be too much longer now."

The black hedgehog looked his shining twin up and down before asking," How much longer are you going to stay like that? I was under the impression that a form like that doesn't last that long."

Sonic snorted, an effect garnished by a few sparks flying from his chest. "I don't know. A couple more minutes, a couple more hours, maybe a day or two. I once stayed in my Super form for 2 days. It's a real rush pullin' pranks on people when you're way too fast to see."

The embarrassment deepened. 'And people mistake him for me...'

As both of them for the first time semi peacefully conversed, neither one of the speedsters noticed a small pinprick of light dance along the ground and then settle on the back of Sonic's head. The little spot of red moved from his head to the hedgehog beside him and back again. Phase Two had kicked in now. The euphoric feeling rushed through his mind. He'd know it's presence once before. He'd amassed it and dispensed it on others, but this feeling was an incredible high. The likes of which he had never felt before. Indeed, he never had the capacity to feel it before. But now. It was vivid and tangible, like something he could wrap himself in.

He was secure in this somewhat alien feeling.. It felt right. His target was firmly locked in, suddenly he knew what this new sensation was swelling within him. It was as if he were what the organisms called God. In that moment in time he was all seeing and all knowing, and had what many creatures wanted. This incredible feeling.

This unnamed new sensation. This pleasurable feeling was...power.

And with this terrible definition in mind, he thought to himself,' Let us kill them both.'

He raised both arms and locked onto the targets with his targeting computer.

Distance = 40 m - Target speed = 0 mph - Targets locked - Ammunition loaded - FIRE at will

SHOOM! SHOOM!

Both shots rang out and the robot burst forward, firing off volleys of bullets behind his first two bolts of energy. Sonic and Shadow were caught unawares, even with Sonic's powers intact. The twin bolts hit their mark, momentarily blinding Sonic and winging his companion. While they were dazed, the storm of bullets showered the area. Bursts of dust and pulverized stone shot into the air around them. They writhed while countless slugs hit them.

The robot strafed to their right and began charging his weapons again for another assault if they had somehow lived through the attack. The dust settled soon enough and Hyper Sonic's aura shone though, flaring red and violet. It pushed away the haze as well as the spent bullets that never penetrated either of their bodies. Though Sonic felt no pain, he was still mad at being sneak attacked again. However, Shadow had been hurt, if only a bruise or two from the bullets.

"I knew I should have destroyed you when I had the chance," Shadow snarled. "Was this what you were planning? A simple little upgrade, you pathetic chunk of metal!"

The robot had exchanged his red and orange colors for black and dark green. His pole-like legs had been replaced by actual working robotic limbs. His arms had been rebuilt with more girth for hidden energy blasters as well as pods on his shoulders that housed automatic weaponry. The body was still somewhat portly, but instead of being the storehouse of an obvious amount of hardware, it was equipped with armor that was particularly thick. The head still was the same ovoid egg top with bright red eyes.

Eggrobo did something somewhat uncharacteristic for a badnik. He laughed. The robot opened a cavity on his right side and pulled out an orb to toss at his opponents. The two hedgehogs were moving before the bomb had even reached the top of it's arc. As it exploded, Eggrobo took to the air on a powerful set of jet engines built into it's back and limbs.

It wasn't long before the chamber was filled with the sounds of gunfire and explosions. Each of the two heroes eluded the automaton's attacks easily, skipping over bullets and dodging missiles or grenades. Eggrobo seemed to have an entire factory's worth of ammo in that fat body of his. The walls were decimated by the impacts of his continuous hail of bullets.

Sonic landed on the ground beneath the robot and then quickly flipped up in a spinning dervish of light. The world went white for a second and he was across the room. The left arm and leg of Eggrobo's body clanged to the floor heavily, still smoking.

Sonic dashed by Shadow and grasped his arm. "Tag team!"

The black hedgehog shuddered and then yelled out as he felt recharged. Sonic's touch pushed an unbelievable amount of strength cut off from him earlier back into his body. It was like it was before he'd undergone stasis decades ago. He was strong again. Knowing it was just a jumpstart, he knew exactly what to do to the treacherous badnik.

Eggrobo shook in the air as he struggled to remain upright after having half of it's weapons cut off. Warning lights flashed on his HUD in the direction behind him. The robot's body rotated slowly to face this new threat with what was left of it's armor plating intact, but was caught as a line of black went through him. Then again. And again. And again. A dozen more times the sound of tearing metal was heard and Eggrobo just sat there suspended in the air.

The madness stopped when the line of black stopped beside Hyper Sonic and ground to a halt as Shadow.

Sonic looked over at his rival and squinted. "Wait for it," was all Shadow said before it happened.

SHRACT!!

In one fluid movement, every single piece of metal and equipment on Eggrobo's body tore away as if someone had tied a rope to every circuit and bolt and then pulled with a truck. The shrapnel flew in all directions, embedding itself in walls and slamming into the floor and ceiling until every chunk of the robot was no more. At the center of it all was a translucent green bubble. It stretched and bulged before setting down on the floor. And, finally, it collapsed with a simple 'pop!'.

Both of the victors stared in shock at the occupant of said bubble. It was no more than two feet high with dark violet skin that was splotched with light blue. His right arm was still armored, but the left was bare, clutching with minuscule fingers a little circuit board. It opened it's sinister yellow eyes and smiled with jagged little teeth.

The Chao cleared it's throat and said in a confident (yet somehow still cute) voice," Phase Three."

Chapter 17

"You're gonna love Phase Four," he said. The little creature hefted the circuit board high about it's head and screeched. The ear piercing wail echoed through the tomb, shaking sand loose from the walls. An eerie fog began to rise from the circuit board before it became a full blown cloud. A ripple, like that in a pond, went through the air and washed over everything. For an instant, everything was different. Sonic was himself, Shadow was completely red, and the chaos was something else completely. It only lasted for an instant, but that was enough to unnerve the both of them.

All light was soon pulled from the room all at once. Everything became dark but Sonic and the chao. But unlike the chao, Sonic didn't have a red grid of light surrounding him. When Shadow saw that same grid, his thoughts immediately went to Whelpmon and what this monster had done to him to get this ability. But he couldn't worry about it for long seeing as the transformation was beginning.

The chao rose up off of the ground and tossed away the circuit board into the mists. Five orbs of light gathered in the air around the short creature.

"Activation code: Baal digivolve to..."

The body of the chao lost all color but the grid and then doubled in size. Then tripled. It grew again until it was a vaguely tall human shape. Each one of the balls of light around it moved to the arms, legs, and head and then dimmed down until they were a part of the gray featureless form. The new monster began shaking until it forcibly ripped the grid from it's body. When the color came back, Baal's new form touched the ground and looked forward at the two shocked individuals who'd witnessed his birth.

"Mechatamamon!"

He looked like a human representation of his upgraded robot self. The body was covered in a black scale armor that shimmered green. His left arm was heavily armored with a riveted shield that ended in a large gun barrel. The other arm was the same until just above the elbow where a large pod-like attachment covered it until the wrist. He was equipped with rather large boots with strange rockets lining the back of the heel like Shadow's Scorchers.

"Well, this is an odd configuration," Mechatamamon commented from behind his polarized helmet. "A superior mix of the organic and the robotic. I could not have asked for a more rewarding form."

You knew anything about this, Sonic asked telepathically. I mean this isn't the kind of thing you overlook, Shad. But then again, you overlook a lot of stuff. Like: I survived falling through the atmosphere, I have a sinister sidekick who hates humans, and by the way, one of my best pals is a robot whack job!

'You've made your point,' Shadow thought, annoyed.

The newly evolved digimon amalgam stretched out his limbs and groaned. "If you're both ready," he began," I believe we can begin this slaughter."

Shadow took one look at Hyper Sonic and took two steps back. The overcharged hero smiled and glided forward. He sized up Mechatamamon and laughed outright. This wouldn't even take a minute out of his time, two at the most if he pushed himself.

Sonic's aura flared violently and threw off sparks in every direction. It looked as if he were in the middle of a blast furnace the way the excess pulsed and grew into pillars of light that shot skyward. Suddenly it was all gone and Hyper Sonic sat floating a few inches over the ground flashing seven distinct colors that Shadow had seen before. The hyper-charged Sonic said only thing before he shot forward: "Go!"

The impending shockwave from the clash send Shadow stumbling backward. He'd given up trying to watch and just stood off to the side trying not to get involved for the moment. When he looked up again, he saw that the robot had actually blocked Sonic's blow with his oversized forearm attachment. He took notice of Sonic's need to constantly keep attacking, a never ending stream of loud and forceful strikes to all of the robot's exposed weak points. Every joint was kicked, every fragile point punched and chopped at with enough force that, even as his normal self, should have been enough to reduce anything operating machine that size to chunks of ragged metal and circuit boards.

Yet, he was still standing. Worst of all, he barely moved. Sure, to block a hit here and there or to weakly counter. But nothing concrete. Like he was holding back... waiting for something. Was it an opening? Some kind of slip up that could leave Sonic ready to absorb some kind of big attack from that weapon of his? What was it?

Sonic's movements became more like floundering. His hits stopped producing shockwaves when they connected with Mechatamamon's body. The sound of panting and fierce shouts filled the air more and more as time passed, all of it coming from the glowing hedgehog who never relented in his seemingly one-sided assault. Shadow peered at the both of them and then tried to feel deeper than what his eyes could perceive. It was hard with all of the distraction, but he finally managed to get within that place inside himself where everything was different. Everything flowed differently here. Different senses, almost illogical feelings that came and went, and this insatiable cord of... what was it? A sound? A chime? A vibration... yes, a vibration. Like a heartbeat, but, again, different.

He focused his new senses on Sonic's conflict and was shaken from his perspective by what he felt. There was only one word to say when he knew there was no way to prevent it from happening.

"Dammit," the black hedgehog muttered.

Mecha sensed the moment was upon him and quickly jumped into Sonic's face. The sudden change in proximity of between he and his opponent put the hedgehog off his guard for a moment. A moment was all that was needed. The digimon viciously swung with his right arm and sent Sonic flying through the air toward the far wall.

At the very top of his arc, Mechatamamon's pod arm transfigured into a smooth bore cannon that immediately began to charge. He quickly aimed it up at the spinning hedgehog.

"Activation Code: Egg Blaster!"

It was only one pulse of light followed by a trail of smoke that drifted away on the wind, but that was just the beginning. When it struck Sonic right over his heart, his body began to shudder and convulse uncontrollably. Much as it had when he first transformed. Another agonizing scream pierced the air and a scorched blue hedgehog slammed face-first into the wall. Hyper Sonic was no more.

WHAP!

The automaton caught Shadow's foot before he'd gotten a foot from his head. His left arm was still outstretched, and his right had moved seemingly without conscious thought. The black hedgehog flailed wildly in Mechatamamon's grip. His body contorted in every direction trying to break loose, but finding no way to release his foot.

"Now that he's done," the smug digimon boasted," we can begin our fun."

The robot's hands were a blur again and...

KRAK!

"Graaahh! Nnngg!" Shadow groaned in agony, doing his best not to cry out.

The robot cruelly swung Shadow back and forth by his leg. The very same leg that had been broken into an obscene angle an instant before. The kneecap had been shattered and was a jumble of bone fragments that poked at the flesh within the hedgehog's leg painfully. Mechatamamon laughed gleefully like a chid with it's favorite toy. He would swing his injured adversary within arm's length of his body back and forth and then wring him around like a dog with a chew toy.

All Shadow could do at the moment was push away the pain and try to find some way to escape and heal himself. That thought was abolished when the digimon tossed him in the air and grasped him by the other leg.

Another crack was heard and the other leg was suddenly pointing in the other direction with a jagged red spike of bone pointing out just below Shadow's knee. The hedgehog still didn't scream and didn't do so the whole time he was twisted and broken again and again. Each time the response would become less and less until there was no sign of life in him but the look of intense hatred in his wild crimson eyes.

"Why won't you scream for me," The robot puzzled aloud. He tossed Shadow against the wall where Sonic lay unconscious and brought back his arm cannon. The crumpled heroes laid there like discarded rag dolls, one a crooked wreck and the other dirtied and beaten down. They were just about as helpless as they were going to get.

As the targeting sensors came back online, Mechatamamon wondered would all of his conquests be this easy?

While it was true that they had no idea what they were dealing with, they shouldn't have attacked him directly. Who knows? They might have lived a few days after he'd killed Eggman.

The robot took aim on the two useless sacks of meat and spines in front of him and began charging his attack again.

"Activation Code: Egg Canno–"

FWOOMPH!!

The creature cried out in shock and for the first time, in pain. He jumped away and started frantically patting down the side of it's body that was engulfed in liquid fire. It actually burned. What? Why was he programmed to feel pain? Pain was an organic weakness. He was a cybernetic being and logically should have felt no pain... but he did. How could a creature composed of ones and zeroes feel pain?

"Yeeaarrgh! Who? Who did that to me?" He cried out in anguish. "I'll kill - Aaargh!"

Another attack hit him in the same side where his data was partially now exposed through the burnt through armor. It smouldered and glowed a dull red where the creeping super hot liquid kept spreading. More of it was spreading now that something else had reignited it.

"What's the matter," a slightly rasping voice said sweetly. A ball of glowing fire and napalm appeared in the air and gave off a dull glow, already exposing her body. She went the rest of the way and dropped her invisibility. She stood with her back against the wall tossing the ball up and down in her palm. "Baby touch something too hot," Hazard teased.

A small red dot appeared on the robot's forehead, scanning around until it was level with one of his eyes hidden beneath. He glanced left and saw the Cyclone with all of it's weapons at the ready. Tails was clutching his firing controls tightly. Ready to fire if the monster even thought about making another move on his friend.

"Stalemate I suppose," the robot said through gritted teeth he didn't know he had.

A cold wind kicked up. A freeze that cut right through the digimon's armor and made him shiver with it's intense cold. A complete counter to the burning that spread from his side through the rest of his body, it swept in from above and was descending. Streams of steam were coming from the slits in his helmet as the temperature around him dropped.

Something seemingly poured itself from the sky. A tall black monster with two bladed wings and neon glowing glyphs all over it's body. The seams of it's armor were highlighted by the same color as it's eyes, a blazing violet shade that instilled fear in all who looked into them. The lean insectoid arms ended in wicked claws that were a parody on the human hand, sticking up out of the cuticles and overgrowing onto the fingertips. The face was almost completely devoid of features like a mouth or nose, looking more like a helmet with the slits on the front that breathed out white mist.

"Not really," the apparition said before spreading his wings and then folding them back. His right hand snatched back over his shoulder to grasp at his wings and they detached to morph into a sword. Mechatamamon barely had time for an unnoticeable squeak before the strike hit.

An explosion of light and sound shook the chamber, masking them both in silhouette outline. Sound was soon replaced by one phrase when the sword came out of the other end of the robot.

"DEL SABER!!!"

Nobody moved or even blinked when everything was done. Mechatamamon shook once and began to break down, bits of whispy green smoke and numbers breaking out from the long gash in the armor across his torso. Delmon could do nothing but laugh evilly as a grid formed on his body. Each one of them was changing again, becoming smaller in one way or another. The metals and alloys in the robot's body sloughing off to be replaced by blackness with scrolling ones and zeroes dropping down through it. Each part in the demon digimon's grid began to smooth out until he was of a rather human shape. Each sheet of the form began to flake off like chipping paint until he was left standing without any unnatural features.

Mechatamamon however burst into a spray of pixels and vanished. However, something shot out of the mass and into the sky through the same hole Delmon had come through. It was gone the moment it was seen, out of sight but definitely not out of mind.

_-_ Epilogue _-_

"So what happens now," Sally asked, shielding her eyes from the desert sun.

"Everyone goes home," Delmon's human form answered fondly, basking in the light. "Even me this time."

"I thought you said you didn't know where home was," Sonic chimed in.

It was an hour after the fight was over. Everyone had worked their way out of the pyramid and gone outside to sit on an airstrip and relax now that all of the threats had been taken care of. Nobody was as happy about being done with all of this as Delmon was after fighting for his life for hours in that lab before Tails found him while hacking into the security systems. It took some time for him to blast his way in, but he arrived just in time to help initiate the digimon's recovery systems.

It took another half hour before Hazard gathered everyone up near one of the space transporters still online and left for Mobius. Nobody, aside from Shadow knew that Hazard had given Eggrobo permission to experiment on Whelpmon before her sudden change and that was the way it was going to stay. There was enough distrust in the air with her presence as it was. No need to make more.

"I know," the human said," but now I remember almost everything. What my real name is, who my friends are, what happened to make me like I am... I know all of it. It makes me sad, but I'm glad I know now. All of my memories as Whelpmon are fuzzy at best, but I really don't care. I'm me again."

"Good to see," Sonic said, trying to push away memories of the Delmon that was. He motioned toward Hazard and Shadow. "What about them?"

Shadow was busy stretching after laying out on the ground for an hour, waiting for his legs to heal. Apparently it didn't take long for them to work as well as before when Hazard finally set them properly. That is, after a bit of yelling and grunting about not treating his legs like sticks when she set the bones incorrectly. All she did was retort and gently twist one of the fragments the wrong way so he would get the message: Shut your wordhole and let me do my job.

After that she had not-so-mysteriously disappeared. The air wavered close to Shadow every now and then, signaling that she was closer than they thought.

"Let them be. I have a feeling they'll be fine without our interference."

The blue hedgehog pulled something out of his glove and tossed it out onto the dunes where it seemed to wink out of existence. "Another perfectly good Time Stone I've tossed away," he said wistfully. He then looked up at the human and pulled a strange device from the same glove. "Should I do the same with this?"

"As soon as you can. It was never really meant to exist in the first place."

Sonic looked at the heat wave warping around Shadow and asked," Her too? I know it's not right, but... I can't really wish she'd never existed, ya know. It might turn out to be a blessing in disguise."

The human sighed and crossed his arms. "Maybe..."

"Do you think we've seen the last of that super badnik," Sally asked. "It almost killed Sonic and Shadow. And after it died, I thought I saw something shoot out of the pixels it released."

'You did,' the human thought. 'I wish it weren't true, but you did. And it'll be another mess to clean up later.'

"Sure," he lied. "It's gone."

It was then that Shadow strolled over, dragging Hazard with him. He propped he up in front of him and said," Do it."

The dragon girl looked sheepish for a moment, like their stare were making her uncomfortable. She began to speak and then stopped. Then starting twisting her hair and smiling awkwardly before stomping on the ground and looking them each in the eye. Finally, Hazard breathed deep and then said," I'm sorry."

And cue the group facefault... now.

"I'm sorry for using you. And for trying to kill you. And for stealing from you. And for hurting you..." She continued, rattling off all of her offenses. "There, I'm done. Are we... cool now?"

Sonic and Sally stared at her and squinted like they were looking for something. The mobians just shrugged when they found absolutely no lie in her apology.

"Well, I guess so," Sonic said nervously.

"Great," the halfling trilled as she jumped over and glomped the both of them. Sonic was scared witless at the prospect of that kind of pain shooting through him again and the princess was just surprised.

However, the crushing embrace didn't hurt. Not at all. Sure, her bare arms were a bit overheated like the rest of her flesh, but that was about it. There was no rushing pain, no broken necks, no nothing. Just someone affectionately hugging her new pals.

"Oh, sorry," she said, suddenly backing off. "Couldn't help myself."

Sonic's left eye twitched. "It... d-didn't hurt."

"I know. Shadow taught me how to keep that from happening. Just like he'll be teaching me a whole lot more about my powers, right Shad?"

A smooth whack on the back of the head was followed after that remark. "You'll address me as Shadow only around others and when I'm instructing you," the black hedgehog said. "Let's try to remember that rule from now on."

"Ow! Alright, Shadow."

"Why don't you just come back to Knothole with us," Sally asked. "I'd bet St. John would love to have a good black ops agent or two on his team."

"No thanks. We can take care of ourselves. Besides," he remarked, smirking. "We Ultimate Life-forms have to stick together."

Hazard giggled. "Right."

Bunnie chose that time to rush up to the group. "Hey, ya'll," she panted, out of breath from the running she'd done. "Tails said the Cyclone's all ready to go. Ya'll ready to go?"

"In a sec," Sonic said, turning back to Shadow and his charge. "Uh, do you guys need a ride or... oh."

They were already gone.

"Of course," he muttered, following Sally and Bunnie. "Let's go guys. Last one home is a rotten Eggman." He looked back at the human who was looking into the sky. "I'll see ya around... um-"

"Irvine," he answered. "Crimson Irvine."

"Yeah. Later Crimson." And he was gone in a blue blur yet again down the strip toward his friends.

(Begin "Somewhere I Belong" by Linkin Park)

"Later..."

The world around him began to warp and pull in upon itself. Strings of light started to lead from his body into nowhere and then stretch over the horizon. One of those strings pulsed in time with his heartbeat and then engulfed him. When the world returned to normal, he was gone.

Special Thanks to

Sega for creating Sonic Adventure 2 Dan 'Frieza2000' Fizz for his support and insight

Spaz for inspiring me to draw and ultimately to create my own StH character

And to who ever took the time out to read this. As one of my friends said: This stuff's long!

Christopher Scott